Western Standard - WATCH： Canadian Taxpayers Federation 24th annual Teddy Waste Awards

00:00:00.000 Florida Director, Chris Sims, and our friendly mascot, Porky the Waste Hater.

00:00:07.260 The Teddies are named after Ted Weatherhill, a former federal bureaucrat who racked up $150,000

00:00:13.640 in food and drink expenses before he was finally fired. While Ted is long gone from government,

00:00:19.680 his legacy lives on in his namesake ceremony, the Teddy Waste Awards. It has become our

00:00:25.040 annual celebration of the best of the worst of government waste.

00:00:30.000 This year we have a total of 16 nominees across our Federal, Provincial and Municipal categories,

00:00:37.000 in addition to our most prestigious award, the Lifetime Achievement Award for Government Waste.

00:00:42.000 Well, let's start first with the Municipal category.

00:00:47.000 So the first nominee involves a serious case of tree envy.

00:00:51.000 In 2019, the City of Winnipeg erected an artificial and reusable Christmas tree

00:00:56.000 tree that stood 28 feet tall in front of City Hall. But Mayor Brian Bowman didn't

00:01:02.360 think the tree was up to size. This past Christmas the city shelled out another

00:01:07.100 two hundred and sixty thousand dollars on major enhancements for the city's

00:01:11.320 reusable Christmas tree including a 22 foot tall extension. We don't know

00:01:16.460 exactly what the city is compensating for with a 50 foot tall Christmas tree

00:01:20.600 but Mayor Bowman needs to know that size isn't everything when it comes to

00:01:25.180 taxpayers' money. You know, I like to party as much as the next guy, unless that next guy is

00:01:33.560 Sue Gill. He was a bureaucrat at the Thompson-Nicola Regional District in beautiful Kamloops,

00:01:38.640 British Columbia, who expensed half a million dollars over five years on fancy meals, booze,

00:01:43.840 and jewelry for his crew, in addition to more than $8,000 on a champagne room.

00:01:50.140 And what did Kamloops do to make sure that this would never happen again?

00:01:53.520 They gave Gill a half a million dollar severance. Rumor is, he plans to spend that money on 62 champagne rooms.

00:02:04.220 So, politicians always talk about helping the downtrodden, right? That's their thing.

00:02:09.400 But Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson has an odd notion as to who really needs help.

00:02:14.160 The city of Ottawa handed out nearly $3 million to a Porsche dealership.

00:02:20.160 As Post Media's Jesse Klein pointed out, the money went to building a two-story Porsche dealership

00:02:24.980 on top of an existing Audi dealership that's on the same site as a Maserati dealership

00:02:30.880 and is just 600 meters from the company's existing Porsche dealerships.

00:02:36.220 Seriously, I Google mapped it. It's like a nine-minute walk.

00:02:39.020 Rumor is it that Lamborghini and Rolls-Royce are feeling like they're taking a back seat.

00:02:42.740 the next nominee is literally flushing taxpayers money down the toilet the city of vancouver is

00:02:52.600 apparently so flush with taxpayers cash that is spending 645 000 on an outdoor washroom that

00:03:00.080 price tag is surely causing some stomach rumblings for city of vancouver taxpayers a similar facility

00:03:06.760 is being installed in prince george but for a third of the price the city of vancouver has

00:03:12.540 has yet to come clean on why its deal stinks so much compared to Prince George's.

00:03:21.060 So for Edmonton taxpayers, the delayed and over budget Metro Line LRT was the little

00:03:26.780 engine that couldn't.

00:03:28.720 In Edmonton's defense, the city eventually worked out the kinks, but not after spending

00:03:33.300 millions that the city is now trying to recoup.

00:03:36.720 Years of delays and two different companies.

00:03:39.680 So how do you find a missing train line?

00:03:42.020 follow the tracks. The City of Edmonton proved to be much better at covering their tracks

00:03:46.580 than building them. And with that, if I could please get the winning envelope.

00:03:52.580 Thank you. And the winner of the Municipal Government Category is

00:03:58.580 Sooke Gill. Sooke Gill, the former Chief Administrative Officer at the Thompson-Niccolo

00:04:10.300 regional district near Kamloops he was expensing an average of one hundred thousand dollars per

00:04:15.820 year for five years and you know if you spend that amount of money on jewelry fancy meals and

00:04:20.220 popping bottles it might make you popular at the municipal board meetings but it's not going to

00:04:24.940 make you many friends with taxpayers who are actually paying your bills now let's move on to

00:04:29.100 the provincial nominees how do you scare a polar bear you don't they're huge they're apex predators

00:04:38.700 and they're not scared of anything yet the government of manitoba spent 150 000

00:04:45.900 replacing diesel tundra buggies with electric vehicles so tourists wouldn't scare away the

00:04:51.260 polar bears before spending all that cash taxpayers wish the government had watched

00:04:57.180 the raft of youtube videos that show the polar bears sound asleep as the diesel buggies pass on by

00:05:03.020 So we're supposed to trust Ontario politicians to oversee a $200 billion budget, but they can't

00:05:12.800 get by without a payday advance to cover their own election campaigns. Doug Ford promised to

00:05:17.800 end political welfare. Instead, he's giving political parties $60 million in taxpayers'

00:05:23.700 money and a payday loan so they can take the cash even earlier. You know, oppositions at

00:05:29.280 queens park fight almost everything that ford does he says cheesecake they scream for ice cream that's

00:05:35.120 how it usually works but they finally found something they can get for to pass on giving

00:05:40.000 themselves more tax dollars can you hear the kumbaya queens park the great thing about netflix

00:05:50.240 and chill is that it's a pretty cheap date but staying home on the couch gets pretty expensive

00:05:55.600 if you're spending a hundred and forty thousand dollars like the government of newfoundland and

00:06:00.080 labrador now the government says that visitors will be able to sit on these sofas once the

00:06:05.360 colonial building reopens but taxpayers are demanding sippy cups and cushion covers because

00:06:11.440 if four couches cost 140 000 then we better not be seeing a cleaning bill

00:06:16.560 so how do you hide a jet that's 127 feet long leave it up to the quebec government in 2015

00:06:27.120 quebec it gave bombardier c series 1.3 billion dollars and the last annual report shows that

00:06:34.160 loan is now worthless so quebec finally figured out giving bombardier more cash wasn't a good

00:06:40.120 idea. So now Quebec is giving the Airbus A220 project a $380 million subsidy instead. Only

00:06:48.220 problem here, taxpayers didn't get to see the fine print. See, the Airbus A220, it's just a

00:06:54.580 name change. It's the plane formerly known as the Bombard AC series. Rumor has it that they're

00:07:02.480 going to go for another branding change, but the next dodgy scheme, its names Enron, was already

00:07:08.760 taken the next nominee exemplifies government employees unrelenting commitment to being paid

00:07:18.680 overtime the pandemic was hard on us all but one upside is that it gave some people the opportunity

00:07:25.320 to relax a little bit reconnect with their families and try to escape the rat race well 0.99

00:07:30.680 that wasn't the case for a lot of quebec even though they closed their casinos their employees

00:07:36.120 we're still able to log 1.9 million dollars in overtime lotto quebec teaches us all a very

00:07:43.080 important life lesson just because no one is at the blackjack table it doesn't mean you stop dealing

00:07:49.160 and with that if i could get the winning envelope please for our provincial category

00:07:55.240 let's see here

00:07:58.680 okay and the winner of the provincial category of government waste

00:08:03.560 is the government of Quebec.

00:08:06.140 The government of Quebec, everyone.

00:08:10.620 And they're getting the provincial teddy

00:08:12.840 for finding new and innovative ways

00:08:14.960 to give taxpayers money to bombard it.

00:08:17.160 I mean, Airbus.

00:08:19.020 Now let's move on to the federal nominations.

00:08:23.700 So when it comes to blowing taxpayers' money,

00:08:26.160 this next nominee consistently says, hold my beer.

00:08:30.540 So the NCC is basically a parks and recs board on steroids in Ottawa.

00:08:35.560 And it turns out it cost around $11 million to renovate the Prime Minister's cottage mansion at Harrington Lake.

00:08:44.340 For the amount the NCC was spending on renovations alone,

00:08:48.880 taxpayers instead could have purchased outright Chad Kruger and Avril Lavigne's Los Angeles mansion,

00:08:55.140 Halle Berry's lavish getaway in the Laurentians,

00:08:57.600 and a super fancy cottage right next to Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn,

00:09:02.560 and we'd still have money left over to buy a couple of Lamborghinis.

00:09:09.700 The next nominee is a scary sequel to M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense.

00:09:15.180 It's Taxpayers See Dead People with Six-Figure Expense Accounts.

00:09:19.660 Being Governor General is a pretty sweet gig.

00:09:22.340 It comes with an all-expenses-paid mansion and a $300,000 per year salary, but apparently even that's not enough.

00:09:30.320 When a governor general leaves office, they get a $200,000 per year expense account for the rest of their life and up to six months into the afterlife.

00:09:40.020 Hopefully, when a former governor general passes, they rest in peace and don't rack up too many expenses.

00:09:45.960 so the next nomination is a federal crown corporation that just can't let the idea of a

00:09:53.640 home equity tax go the liberals say they won't put in a home equity tax the conservatives say

00:09:59.720 they won't put one in either but that hasn't stopped the canada mortgage and housing corporation

00:10:04.140 the cmhc spent 250 000 on a report that recommends a surtax on the value of homes

00:10:11.140 above $1 million.

00:10:13.020 Then they turned around and spent another $200,000

00:10:16.060 on a study to understand the results

00:10:19.340 of their own home tax study.

00:10:21.720 Seriously, the CMHC is like the big bad wolf.

00:10:25.120 They'll huff and they'll puff

00:10:26.460 and they'll tax your home equity down.

00:10:34.460 How do you know when it's really cold in Ottawa?

00:10:37.120 Politicians put their hands in their own pockets

00:10:39.420 for a change.

00:10:41.140 during the pandemic many canadians had a tough time took a pay cut lost their job

00:10:45.620 maybe even lost their business all while members of parliament were busy giving themselves not one

00:10:50.820 not two but three pandemic pay raises the pandemic pay raises range from an extra

00:10:55.940 ten thousand dollars for a back venture all the way up to an extra twenty thousand dollars for

00:11:00.420 prime minister justin trudeau but can you really blame these politicians for wanting more money

00:11:04.980 after all their tax hikes are really making things expensive these days

00:11:11.140 So how do you turn a free service into a $1,000 expense?

00:11:17.080 Just add government.

00:11:19.020 In Canada, any police station will come pick up your firearm free of charge

00:11:23.400 if you decide you don't want it anymore.

00:11:25.240 It's a free service. 1.00

00:11:26.380 Most of us are super happy when something's free, but not Canadian heritage.

00:11:30.120 So these bureaucrats spent $1,000 talking amongst themselves

00:11:34.280 about how to get the police to come pick this thing up for free.

00:11:38.380 They even spent hundreds of dollars getting their plans translated into French.

00:11:44.200 Taxpayers certainly hope that bureaucrats working for Canadian Heritage

00:11:47.000 don't go to Timmy's on their breaks and play roll of the win

00:11:50.360 because they're going to turn a free coffee into a $10,000 bill.

00:11:54.280 And with that, if I could please get the winning envelope.

00:11:57.440 Thank you, sir.

00:11:59.180 And the winner in the federal category for the 2022 Teddy Waste Awards,

00:12:04.560 the National Capital Commission.

00:12:07.820 For spending around $11 million renovating a lake house, including $2.5 million on a backup cottage for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

00:12:20.580 Yes, Trudeau has a backup mansion at Arrington Lake.

00:12:23.860 Because, you know, if there's paint fumes or hammering happening somewhere, you might have to go sleep in a fancy doghouse.

00:12:33.040 And just think about how many Porsche dealerships the city of Ottawa could have subsidized.

00:12:37.820 with all that money won't somebody think of the porsche dealerships

00:12:45.420 and now our most prestigious award the lifetime achievement award for waste

00:12:52.300 just let me take a little sneak peek here

00:12:58.860 it's a good one so past recipients have included everyone from premiers to prime ministers

00:13:05.660 to bevota bombardier and the phoenix payroll fiasco the winner put in a lot of solid efforts

00:13:12.460 in the past but finally got over the finish line this year and it is canada's climate delegations

00:13:24.540 canada sent 276 delegates to the united nations recent cop 26 climate conference in glasgow

00:13:32.780 Scotland, the highest of any G7 country. The hosts United Kingdom managed with only 227.

00:13:40.320 The Americans sent 133 delegates and the efficient Germans sent 120. It's hard to imagine why it 0.83

00:13:46.980 takes more than two Canadian delegates to do the work of one American or German delegate.

00:13:52.120 Even more bizarre, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland lodged in the wrong city, staying in 0.69

00:13:57.540 Edinburgh rather than the host city of Glasgow. So now taxpayers are left wondering, did the

00:14:02.200 finance minister forget to check Google Maps before booking her trip? And even if rooms in

00:14:07.640 Glasgow were full, it's hard to imagine that a deputy prime minister of a G7 nation couldn't

00:14:13.540 pull rank. Forcing some bureaucrats to zoom in rather than fly over to Scotland could have freed

00:14:20.040 up some rooms for Freeland. And Freeland didn't have to bill taxpayers $3,000 on a luxury chauffeur

00:14:26.820 service between the two cities when first-class train tickets between

00:14:31.260 Glasgow and Edinburgh were much cheaper and faster. The 2021 conference cost

00:14:38.220 more than a million dollars. In 2019, Canada sent the second-largest G20

00:14:43.800 delegation to COP25 in Madrid, Spain. That cost taxpayers more than 680,000

00:14:49.500 smackers. Canada's COP26 delegation is less efficient than a 1970s 4x4 truck

00:14:55.560 pulling a camper up a hill because the result is higher emissions and higher

00:14:59.940 taxpayer costs Canada's climate delegations are a worthy recipient of

00:15:04.800 this year's lifetime achievement award for government waste and with that we

00:15:15.540 would like to thank you very much for coming to the 2022 Teddy Waste Awards

00:15:19.320 thank you for coming and yeah if you have any questions we're happy to answer

00:15:24.960 them? Yes, we do. Franco, Melanie with the Western Standard. And curious, the Canadian

00:15:32.180 Taxpayer Federation did a recent tour across the country with the new debt clock. What were you

00:15:37.940 hearing from Canadians? What was on Canadians' minds? Yes, we got a few different types of

00:15:42.960 responses. The first one was a shock. The debt clock showed the $1 trillion going up in real

00:15:48.560 time, about $1,600 every second. So it was a real shock. And we also had a little spot at the bottom

00:15:53.780 that show that each Canadian share was $30,000. And a few times on the street, we heard from

00:15:59.420 people like, hey, I don't have $30,000 around to pay Trudeau's and the government's credit

00:16:03.900 card bills. So one was kind of a shock. Another one that we heard, which I really empathize with

00:16:09.480 is, hey, when is that clock going to start counting down? So I love that response. But really,

00:16:15.320 we heard a lot of concern because many Canadians, they want to leave their kids and grandkids with

00:16:20.240 a shot at financial success. Right now, each Canadian is on the hook for $30,000 in federal

00:16:25.720 debt. By 2070, it's estimated that that could reach $67,000. So it's a huge tax bill that we're

00:16:32.040 leaving to future generations because this government is spending like crazy.

00:16:35.900 And speaking of some of the inflation and the high prices at the pumps, my question is,

00:16:43.100 as much as these are taxes, it seems like it's hitting a particular demographic. It

00:16:50.080 seems like it's hitting a lot of families families that don't really have the option to uh use public

00:16:55.500 transit for say getting their kids to uh to events and sports and school functions and and whatnot

00:17:00.780 it almost you know some would classify it as a as a bit of a punishment task it feels that way what

00:17:07.180 do you say to that it feels that way and i i empathize with with it because let me just give

00:17:11.720 you a personal story my mom we used to live in small town ontario port hope and she used to work

00:17:16.120 in the Toronto area. Well, that's an hour car drive one way. You can't just take your bike to

00:17:21.260 work. The public transit is difficult, especially when you have to get to work at certain hours of

00:17:27.500 the day or if you have meetings. So for many people in Canada, I mean, fueling up your car

00:17:32.740 isn't a nice to have, it's a need to have. And yes, there's these high gas prices, but it's the

00:17:38.680 high taxes that make these high prices even more painful. And of course, there's so many things

00:17:42.900 going on around the world that Canadian politicians can't directly influence.

00:17:46.700 One thing they can influence, though, is how much money they're taking at the pumps.

00:17:50.780 And right now, up to 38 percent of the pump price in Canada is taxes alone.

00:17:55.540 But it's getting worse by 2030.

00:17:57.660 Taxes will make up about 96 cents per liter

00:18:01.180 because of the Trudeau government's carbon tax hike.

00:18:03.260 So we think it's extremely tone deaf for the federal government to keep raising

00:18:07.620 its carbon tax when Canadians are already struggling to fuel up their cars on the way to work right now.

00:18:11.780 And speaking of tone deaf governments, it seems as though the plight of most Canadians who are struggling under the rising inflation, the cost of the pump bills, it sounds like governments are not hearing from the public.

00:18:30.000 What do you recommend the average Canadian do in this climate, in this very expensive time?

00:18:37.680 What can the average Canadian do to try to influence change?

00:18:41.780 And it's not even that they're not listening.

00:18:43.900 They're financially divorced and detached from the realities facing their constituents.

00:18:47.860 And this is why we always hammer the pay raise issue.

00:18:50.460 Our members of parliament, and they're getting a Teddy nomination from it, gave themselves three pay raises during the pandemic.

00:18:57.840 Well, they've become financially divorced from the constituents that they're supposed to represent who have taken a pay cut, maybe lost their job or maybe even lost their business.

00:19:06.180 And when you have politicians that are not within the same financial reality of their constituents,

00:19:11.940 well, they end up making tone deaf policy decisions, which we're seeing right now, right?

00:19:15.540 We've seen all members of parliament, three pay raises during the pandemic. More than 300,000

00:19:19.860 federal government employees received a raise during the pandemic, not a single one took a pay

00:19:23.620 cut. So I think that is a huge reason why we're getting these tone deaf policies in Ottawa.

00:19:28.500 But what Canadians can do, you have to participate in democracy. You have to pick up the phone,

00:19:32.980 you have to call your member of parliament what i would suggest doing too is next time you're at

00:19:36.660 the pumps take a photo of your receipt send them an email show them how much and how much it's

00:19:41.540 costing you and and tell them that they need to ease up and they need to give you some tax relief

00:19:47.860 thank you good okay perfect thanks everyone

Western Standard - May 26, 2022

WATCH： Canadian Taxpayers Federation 24th annual Teddy Waste Awards

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